Education

What We Have: Jewish Environmental Education

Jewish environmental education can show that Jewish tradition has a unique and authentically Jewish contribution to make to the public conversation on the environment. This is a powerful argument for the living relevance of Judaism in the contemporary world. For most young Jews, environmental concern is an axiomatic part of responsible citizenship.

Conversely, for Jewish education to ignore or marginalize environmentalism would likely lead to Judaism being ignored and marginalized by a generation of Jews for whom environmental concern is increasingly central to their moral consciousness.

The Jewish educational system ranges from local pre-schools and local synagogues to universities and rabbinical academies.  While the system is diverse, there are a few key centralized points of contact that can help to distribute information and shift focus.

Where We Are in Education: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now

• Outdoors, Experiential, Jewish Environmental Education.

Jewish texts are arguably most effective in the context of environmental education if they are taught in a way that engages contemporary issues and if they are combined with some practical change or challenge for the participants.

Highly effective Jewish environmental education in recent years has been done by small organizations that have taken Jewish people outdoors and connected Jewish teaching with action of various sorts

These programs include:

• Adamah (Isabella Freedman): farming;
• Hazon: bike rides & hikes; multiple food programs;
• Jewish Farm School: farming;
• Kayam (Pearlstone): gardening;
• Teva Learning Center: immersion education experiences in natural settings and integrating Jewish environmental education into classrooms and Jewish institutions. Training of educators.
• Derekh Hateva: hiking and environmental education in Israel.

These are diverse organizations with varied programs working with different age groups, and across a fairly wide denominational spread.

What they all share is that they are hands-on. Every one of these programs combines Jewish learning, getting outdoors, learning and doing. There is strong evidence across all of these programs that program alumni become more Jewishly involved and more environmentally active.

• Training and Support of Jewish Communal Leaders

Rabbinic Training
The task of instilling the centrality of ecological concepts in Judaism begins with the rabbinate. We advocate incorporating an environmental leadership component into rabbinical training across the Jewish denominations, as has recently been pioneered by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia.

This rabbinic training program component should equip rabbis to teach, lead and inspire their communities towards making sustainability central to their mission. It should include in depth study of classical Jewish source that bear on ecology, as well as basic environmental science and policy. Rabbis should be strongly encouraged to engage with and formulate theological and legal positions on environmental issues including environmental justice, e.g. by presenting them with halakhic and public policy questions on issues such as energy efficiency, switching to renewable energy sources and water consumption.

Youth Movements
Jewish youth movements in the US, Israel and UK play an immensely influential role in instilling Jewish values and identity for generations of teens. Ecological teaching should be incorporated into youth movement based educational and outdoors activities.

The youth movement tour of Israel undertaken by thousands of Jewish teens at aged 16 is a pivotal identity-forming event. There is great scope to transform this into a deep encounter with Israel's natural environment and to engage participants with her ecological challenges. The UJIA in Britain has begun to rethink Israel tours in this way and to incorporate outdoors education and encounters with Israeli environmental peer groups into the program.  

The example of common sixth grade ecology curricula between Israeli and American school children that has been pioneered over the past two years for example by Sviva Israel is a powerful model for building Israel-Diaspora relations around shared interest projects.

Professional Education

• Teva
• Jewish Greening Fellowship

Communal Leadership

Vision for the Next Generation: Jewish Environmental Education

Environmental awareness and practice will be built into Jewish Studies curricula for all ages and across the Jewish denominations. Curricula will stress the ecological dimension inherent in traditional Jewish practices and will be integrated with everyday school life. Environmental justice will be included in teachings about tikkun olam. The result will be more mainstream Jewish environmental education

Jewish Environmental Education Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

1. Foundations and federations fund environmental education programs on a larger-scale, and synagogues, schools and JCCs partner with them to distribute programs widely.
2. Facilitate Shared Resources:  Today many people and organizations are working on Jewish environmental curricula, sourcebooks, etc. Canfei Nesharim has done important work in this area, for example, through its book of environmental essays on Parshat Hashavua. To minimize costs and maximize accessibility, there could be a web site, to serve as a comprehensive, Jewish people-wide repository of resources ranging from cutting edge research articles on Eco-theology to Primary School lesson plans.
3. Build on the success of existing programs that take Jewish people outdoors and connect Jewish teaching with action;
4. Train staff at Jewish agencies to take leadership in making their facilities more energy efficient and their operations more sustainable. Then, build awareness to educate members and constituents on how to become agents of green change and the Jewish values underpinning such leadership.
5. Integrate environmental leadership component to all rabbinic and lay leadership programs.
6. Include a Jewish environmental education element in Jewish Schools and Youth movements.
7. Include a deep encounter with Israel's natural environment in youth movement Israel tours to engage participants with ecological challenges and triumphs.

Go to jewishclimatecampaign.org to submit goals that you would like to adopt to achieve the vision.